Provided by: libxml-dom-perl_1.44-1_all bug

NAME

       XML::DOM::Node - Super class of all nodes in XML::DOM

DESCRIPTION

       XML::DOM::Node is the super class of all nodes in an XML::DOM document.  This means that
       all nodes that subclass XML::DOM::Node also inherit all the methods that XML::DOM::Node
       implements.

       GLOBAL VARIABLES

       @NodeNames
           The variable @XML::DOM::Node::NodeNames maps the node type constants to strings.  It
           is used by XML::DOM::Node::getNodeTypeName.

       METHODS

       getNodeType
           Return an integer indicating the node type. See XML::DOM constants.

       getNodeName
           Return a property or a hardcoded string, depending on the node type.  Here are the
           corresponding functions or values:

            Attr                   getName
            AttDef                 getName
            AttlistDecl            getName
            CDATASection           "#cdata-section"
            Comment                "#comment"
            Document               "#document"
            DocumentType           getNodeName
            DocumentFragment       "#document-fragment"
            Element                getTagName
            ElementDecl            getName
            EntityReference        getEntityName
            Entity                 getNotationName
            Notation               getName
            ProcessingInstruction  getTarget
            Text                   "#text"
            XMLDecl                "#xml-declaration"

           Not In DOM Spec: AttDef, AttlistDecl, ElementDecl and XMLDecl were added for
           completeness.

       getNodeValue and setNodeValue (value)
           Returns a string or undef, depending on the node type. This method is provided for
           completeness. In other languages it saves the programmer an upcast.  The value is
           either available thru some other method defined in the subclass, or else undef is
           returned. Here are the corresponding methods: Attr::getValue, Text::getData,
           CDATASection::getData, Comment::getData, ProcessingInstruction::getData.

       getParentNode and setParentNode (parentNode)
           The parent of this node. All nodes, except Document, DocumentFragment, and Attr may
           have a parent. However, if a node has just been created and not yet added to the tree,
           or if it has been removed from the tree, this is undef.

       getChildNodes
           A NodeList that contains all children of this node. If there are no children, this is
           a NodeList containing no nodes. The content of the returned NodeList is "live" in the
           sense that, for instance, changes to the children of the node object that it was
           created from are immediately reflected in the nodes returned by the NodeList
           accessors; it is not a static snapshot of the content of the node. This is true for
           every NodeList, including the ones returned by the getElementsByTagName method.

           NOTE: this implementation does not return a "live" NodeList for getElementsByTagName.
           See CAVEATS.

           When this method is called in a list context, it returns a regular perl list
           containing the child nodes. Note that this list is not "live". E.g.

            @list = $node->getChildNodes;        # returns a perl list
            $nodelist = $node->getChildNodes;    # returns a NodeList (object reference)
            for my $kid ($node->getChildNodes)   # iterate over the children of $node

       getFirstChild
           The first child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns undef.

       getLastChild
           The last child of this node. If there is no such node, this returns undef.

       getPreviousSibling
           The node immediately preceding this node. If there is no such node, this returns
           undef.

       getNextSibling
           The node immediately following this node. If there is no such node, this returns
           undef.

       getAttributes
           A NamedNodeMap containing the attributes (Attr nodes) of this node (if it is an
           Element) or undef otherwise.  Note that adding/removing attributes from the returned
           object, also adds/removes attributes from the Element node that the NamedNodeMap came
           from.

       getOwnerDocument
           The Document object associated with this node. This is also the Document object used
           to create new nodes. When this node is a Document this is undef.

       insertBefore (newChild, refChild)
           Inserts the node newChild before the existing child node refChild. If refChild is
           undef, insert newChild at the end of the list of children.

           If newChild is a DocumentFragment object, all of its children are inserted, in the
           same order, before refChild. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first
           removed.

           Return Value: The node being inserted.

           DOMExceptions:

           * HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR
               Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the
               newChild node, or if the node to insert is one of this node's ancestors.

           * WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
               Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created
               this node.

           * NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
               Raised if this node is readonly.

           * NOT_FOUND_ERR
               Raised if refChild is not a child of this node.

       replaceChild (newChild, oldChild)
           Replaces the child node oldChild with newChild in the list of children, and returns
           the oldChild node. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed.

           Return Value: The node replaced.

           DOMExceptions:

           * HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR
               Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the
               newChild node, or it the node to put in is one of this node's ancestors.

           * WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
               Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created
               this node.

           * NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
               Raised if this node is readonly.

           * NOT_FOUND_ERR
               Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.

       removeChild (oldChild)
           Removes the child node indicated by oldChild from the list of children, and returns
           it.

           Return Value: The node removed.

           DOMExceptions:

           * NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
               Raised if this node is readonly.

           * NOT_FOUND_ERR
               Raised if oldChild is not a child of this node.

       appendChild (newChild)
           Adds the node newChild to the end of the list of children of this node. If the
           newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed. If it is a DocumentFragment
           object, the entire contents of the document fragment are moved into the child list of
           this node

           Return Value: The node added.

           DOMExceptions:

           * HIERARCHY_REQUEST_ERR
               Raised if this node is of a type that does not allow children of the type of the
               newChild node, or if the node to append is one of this node's ancestors.

           * WRONG_DOCUMENT_ERR
               Raised if newChild was created from a different document than the one that created
               this node.

           * NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR
               Raised if this node is readonly.

       hasChildNodes
           This is a convenience method to allow easy determination of whether a node has any
           children.

           Return Value: 1 if the node has any children, 0 otherwise.

       cloneNode (deep)
           Returns a duplicate of this node, i.e., serves as a generic copy constructor for
           nodes. The duplicate node has no parent (parentNode returns undef.).

           Cloning an Element copies all attributes and their values, including those generated
           by the XML processor to represent defaulted attributes, but this method does not copy
           any text it contains unless it is a deep clone, since the text is contained in a child
           Text node. Cloning any other type of node simply returns a copy of this node.

           Parameters:
            deep   If true, recursively clone the subtree under the specified node.  If false,
           clone only the node itself (and its attributes, if it is an Element).

           Return Value: The duplicate node.

       normalize
           Puts all Text nodes in the full depth of the sub-tree underneath this Element into a
           "normal" form where only markup (e.g., tags, comments, processing instructions, CDATA
           sections, and entity references) separates Text nodes, i.e., there are no adjacent
           Text nodes. This can be used to ensure that the DOM view of a document is the same as
           if it were saved and re-loaded, and is useful when operations (such as XPointer
           lookups) that depend on a particular document tree structure are to be used.

           Not In DOM Spec: In the DOM Spec this method is defined in the Element and Document
           class interfaces only, but it doesn't hurt to have it here...

       getElementsByTagName (name [, recurse])
           Returns a NodeList of all descendant elements with a given tag name, in the order in
           which they would be encountered in a preorder traversal of the Element tree.

           Parameters:
            name  The name of the tag to match on. The special value "*" matches all tags.
            recurse  Whether it should return only direct child nodes (0) or any descendant that
           matches the tag name (1). This argument is optional and defaults to 1. It is not part
           of the DOM spec.

           Return Value: A list of matching Element nodes.

           NOTE: this implementation does not return a "live" NodeList for getElementsByTagName.
           See CAVEATS.

           When this method is called in a list context, it returns a regular perl list
           containing the result nodes. E.g.

            @list = $node->getElementsByTagName("tag");       # returns a perl list
            $nodelist = $node->getElementsByTagName("tag");   # returns a NodeList (object ref.)
            for my $elem ($node->getElementsByTagName("tag")) # iterate over the result nodes

       Additional methods not in the DOM Spec

       getNodeTypeName
           Return the string describing the node type.  E.g. returns "ELEMENT_NODE" if
           getNodeType returns ELEMENT_NODE.  It uses @XML::DOM::Node::NodeNames.

       toString
           Returns the entire subtree as a string.

       printToFile (filename)
           Prints the entire subtree to the file with the specified filename.

           Croaks: if the file could not be opened for writing.

       printToFileHandle (handle)
           Prints the entire subtree to the file handle.  E.g. to print to STDOUT:

            $node->printToFileHandle (\*STDOUT);

       print (obj)
           Prints the entire subtree using the object's print method. E.g to print to a
           FileHandle object:

            $f = new FileHandle ("file.out", "w");
            $node->print ($f);

       getChildIndex (child)
           Returns the index of the child node in the list returned by getChildNodes.

           Return Value: the index or -1 if the node is not found.

       getChildAtIndex (index)
           Returns the child node at the specifed index or undef.

       addText (text)
           Appends the specified string to the last child if it is a Text node, or else appends a
           new Text node (with the specified text.)

           Return Value: the last child if it was a Text node or else the new Text node.

       dispose
           Removes all circular references in this node and its descendants so the objects can be
           claimed for garbage collection. The objects should not be used afterwards.

       setOwnerDocument (doc)
           Sets the ownerDocument property of this node and all its children (and attributes
           etc.) to the specified document.  This allows the user to cut and paste document
           subtrees between different XML::DOM::Documents. The node should be removed from the
           original document first, before calling setOwnerDocument.

           This method does nothing when called on a Document node.

       isAncestor (parent)
           Returns 1 if parent is an ancestor of this node or if it is this node itself.

       expandEntityRefs (str)
           Expands all the entity references in the string and returns the result.  The entity
           references can be character references (e.g. "{" or "&#x1fc2"), default entity
           references (""", ">", "<", "'" and "&") or entity references
           defined in Entity objects as part of the DocumentType of the owning Document.
           Character references are expanded into UTF-8.  Parameter entity references (e.g.
           %ent;) are not expanded.

       to_sax ( %HANDLERS )
           E.g.

            $node->to_sax (DocumentHandler => $my_handler,
                           Handler => $handler2 );

           %HANDLERS may contain the following handlers:

           * DocumentHandler
           * DTDHandler
           * EntityResolver
           * Handler
               Default handler when one of the above is not specified

           Each XML::DOM::Node generates the appropriate SAX callbacks (for the appropriate SAX
           handler.) Different SAX handlers can be plugged in to accomplish different things,
           e.g. XML::Checker would check the node (currently only Document and Element nodes are
           supported), XML::Handler::BuildDOM would create a new DOM subtree (thereby, in
           essence, copying the Node) and in the near future, XML::Writer could print the node.
           All Perl SAX related work is still in flux, so this interface may change a little.

           See PerlSAX for the description of the SAX interface.

       check ( [$checker] )
           See descriptions for check() in XML::DOM::Document and XML::DOM::Element.

       xql ( @XQL_OPTIONS )
           To use the xql method, you must first use XML::XQL and XML::XQL::DOM.  This method is
           basically a shortcut for:

            $query = new XML::XQL::Query ( @XQL_OPTIONS );
            return $query->solve ($node);

           If the first parameter in @XQL_OPTIONS is the XQL expression, you can leave off the
           'Expr' keyword, so:

            $node->xql ("doc//elem1[@attr]", @other_options);

           is identical to:

            $node->xql (Expr => "doc//elem1[@attr]", @other_options);

           See XML::XQL::Query for other available XQL_OPTIONS.  See XML::XQL and
           XML::XQL::Tutorial for more info.

       isHidden ()
           Whether the node is hidden.  See Hidden Nodes for details.